Camp David's Shadow

This dissertation examines the emergence of the 1978 Camp David Accords and the consequences for Israel, the Palestinians, and the wider Middle East. Utilizing archival sources and oral history interviews from across Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Camp David’s Shadow recasts the early history of the peace process. It explains how a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict with provisions for a resolution of the Palestinian question gave way to the facilitation of bilateral peace between Egypt and Israel. As recently declassified sources reveal, the completion of the Camp David Accords—via intensive American efforts— actually enabled Israeli expansion across the Green Line, undermining the possibility of Palestinian sovereignty in the occupied territories. By examining how both the concept and diplomatic practice of autonomy were utilized to address the Palestinian question, and the implications of the subsequent Israeli and U.S. military intervention in Lebanon, the dissertation explains how and why the Camp David process and its aftermath adversely shaped the prospects of a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians in the 1990s. In linking the developments of the late 1970s and 1980s with the Madrid Conference and Oslo Accords in the decade that followed, the dissertation charts the role played by American, Middle Eastern, international, and domestic actors in curtailing the possibility of Palestinian self-determination.